OT opening an Excel document stored on Google Drive

[Murmansk]

A friend of mine works from home since last March and they use Google Drive to store stuff and Google Sheets for spreadsheets.

Problem is some stuff needs to be in Excel as some "customers" can't use Google sheets and need a "proper" spreadsheet!

My friend had a problem with her computer and lost access to some Excel stuff that was on her local hard disk. I wondered why she didn't have these vital Excel files stored on Google Drive so they'd be accessible even though her computer was knackered.

She has some Excel files stored on Drive but claims that they end up being opened in Google Sheets rather than Excel.

Are you getting bored yet!?

I seemed to me that she "simply" needs to go into Excel then go File, Open, navigate to Google Drive and open the Excel file in question - but it's not that easy it seems!

Has anyone else been though this pain? Is it possible? Doesn't seem much to ask to me but it looks like it's harder than it should be!

[GB]

Is she unable to download them to her PC from Google Drive?

[Murmansk]

Well I'd imagine she could but I think what we need is to be able to go File, Open in Excel and choose a file that's stored in Drive in the cloud somewhere just like you would if it was stored locally on the hard drive.

[Adrian Caspersz]

She needs to install the Google Drive software on her PC to do just that. It maps a local folder and handles its replication.

Otherwise, it's a matter of loading/uploading files via the web browser, using an intermediate folder (which will get messy)

[GB]

This is mad! In the Google Drive page in her browser, right click on the file and select the download option.

Her browser will show her when it's downloaded, and then she left clicks it to open it in excel.

It's really not that hard.

Or, as Adrian says, replicate the google drive on her PC, but she'll still need to be able to do something really, really taxing, like navigating to the right folder.

The other trouble with that is that the sync software from google is not that easy to set up, and she'll probably (almost certainly, actually) end up copying all her personal documents onto the company google drive.

Honestly, just Right click ... download ... left click. It's foolproof. Write it on a post it note.

[Tim+]

I would have though that her problem is her browser settings. She needs to tell her browser to open Excel files with Excel

Tim.

[GB]

If you double-click a file in the google drive page, it opens it in google docs. I don't think there are any settings to change that.

[Murmansk]

I know from experience today that if you right-click a file in Google Drive you can select Open With and Excel is not one of the options listed.

[GB]

Same here.

[Chris Green]

Anything that requires "their" software to be installed on my computer is a no no in my books.

[John Rumm]

There are a couple of ways this can work...

You can access google drive in a web browser (visiting drive.google.com) or you can install the google drive connector app on the machine and have it mirror documents between the online drive and the local machine (or machines - much like one drive or dropbox).

If you are on the web page, then you can right click a file and select "download" on a google spreadsheet file - it will then convert to excel format prior to downloading.

If you upload an excel file to the drive it will keep a copy in excel format in the drive (and the storage for it will come out of that allocated to your drive). If you try to open it online, it will open it in googles web based excel editor to start with (i.e. leaving it in excel format). You also have the option of converting it to a native google spreadsheet. (that then opens up the full set of capabilities and it also consumes no storage allocation on the drive)

If you are interacting with the local file system copy of the drive, then any xls or xlsx files stored in the drive you should be able to open directly in excel.

[Paul]

(Poorly formatted web page...)

Mar.2019 Google replacing Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office with Drive File Stream in June

"How to Install Google Drive File Stream"

"Drive File Stream's name is changing to Google Drive for desktop. Learn more about the change."

There's a download file here, but who knows what it does and what it's good for.

253MB !!!

The file is named like File Stream, but of course it's renamed to something else once you install it.

There might even be a setting to "turn on" Office integration.

It's the Cloud. Are we having fun yet ? No ?

The 253MB download, has a Dokan DLL in it, implying Google is doing file system integration with their package.

Paul

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well this is exactly why I use dropbox. Sometimes google drive will be fine, ie copy the file to your normal folder and open it, but increasingly it was becoming a pain, having to somehow use open with etc as if windows had changed the default program when trying to get stuff from Google. On dropbox its really just another folder of course and there is no issue. I'm sure somebody more into the Googleverse might explain how simple it is, but sometimes you don't want to have to read the bloody manual to do what you used to do without it. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Humph, why the extra program, you don't see that on Dropbox you can work either way as the drive software is in the desktop application as standard, it used to be the same in Google drive in the old days.

Even on a smart phone where you only get the online mode without paying it still works pretty well if you have the software on your phone be it Microsoft or whatever, it just works. Brian

[Andy Burns]

You/She can install a 3rd party software such as MountainDuck which will mount or sync with google drive (and onedrive, S3, dropbox etc) there's a freebie called CyberDuck, but AFAIK that doesn't sync or mount, just allows manual copying.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Dropbox also has a application, similar to google drive, that makes a local folder a replicated version of the items online.

Given how Windows is normally friendly to installing anything it socially breezes across, you probably didn't notice the installation.

[Martin Brown]

That is by far the safest way to ensure no data loss.

I think she could do that from inside Excel and it would work.

However, if you do it that way then if anything goes wrong with your network connection whilst the file is open you can potentially lose your work. My wife has had problems with Cloud based documents not saving correctly and reverting to a previous version in the corporate Office online environment. Documents effectively vanish overnight (strictly they open momentarily the next day and then self delete) most odd behaviour. Never pinned it down completely but I suspect it was network dropped and re-established with a new VPN session during a file save.

The only safe way is to duplicate the file that you are working on a local hard drive alter it as required and then upload it. The Cloud is not as stable as you might hope and network glitches can and do happen.

Our rural broadband is wet string quality speed so big Powerpoint presentations with any video content in are impossible to modify. Ones with many high resolution images in can take a few hours to download.

The official corporate branded background designed by clueless muppets takes an insane number of megabytes for the null slide.

[Dave W]

When I first used Google Drive, I could upload an Excel file to it, but could only open it as a Google Sheets file to operate it. The Excel file itself remained unchanged. I can download the edited Google Sheets version into Excel form.

The last time I uploaded an Excel file as an .xls file, it converted it to the modern .xlsx format and allowed editing of it online, without converting to Google Sheets.

I doubt you can open Excel in your PC and work on an online Excel file in Google Drive.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Yup, you can't work on an online folder, but you can on a replicated folder if you have installed google backup and sync.

[Murmansk]

OP here

Thanks for all those replies folks, have given me plenty to think about